The seedling growth responses reported here following varying durations of heat-treatment to break dormancy in
the oil palm progenies may provide some clues as to how prolong heat-treatment durations would influence the
patterns of development in post nursery establishment. Our results showed that all seedling growth parameters
measure decreased with increasing heat-treatment durations. These results suggest that the successful growth of
these oil palm seedlings were impaired by the prolong heat-treatment in the germinator. The heat-treatment
germination of oil palm seeds for more that 80 days are especially not worthy given that under natural conditions,
oil palm seed germination require successive short periods of heat-treatment. These successive short periods of
heat-treatment usually occur during the dry season and in most cases, the germination rate is very slow (1 to 3
years) with very small percentage germination compared to commercial germination. However, field/natural
germination is influenced by other factors, which include seed age, moisture content, the presence of pathogens,
and seed predators.